The Classical Ideas Podcast
Simply stated, religion matters. Religion matters not only for personal reasons, but also for social, economic, political, and military purposes. Unfortunately, studies suggest that religious knowledge and cultural literacy for any religious tradition is either in decline or is non-existent in the United States, despite being one of the most religiously diverse nation on earth. Today, religion is implicated in nearly every major national and international issue. The public arena is awash in religious explanations and arguments for nearly every issue. The goal of The Classical Ideas Podcast is to empower students with the core knowledge of major world religions to improve citizenship and agency in a diverse society. Welcome to the show!
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EP 354: Transforming the American Sangha w/Dr. Nalika Gajaweera
07/07/2026
EP 354: Transforming the American Sangha w/Dr. Nalika Gajaweera
Nalika Gajaweera (Research Affiliate, Walter H. Capps Center, University of California, Santa Barbara; PhD, Anthropology, University of California, Irvine, 2013) is an anthropologist of Buddhism, race, and ethics, with a focus on community well-being and resilience. Her current book manuscript, Transforming the American Sangha, funded by the Kataly Foundation, is an ethnography of the Insight Meditation movement in North America, focused on the efforts of practitioners of color to raise awareness of oppressive racial conditions in these communities. Her doctoral research examined how Buddhist ethics and practices of giving shaped Sri Lankan local NGOs doing humanitarianism work in the context of two disasters: the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 and ethnic conflict that ended in 2009. A former Fulbright fellow, Dr. Gajaweera has conducted fieldwork in North America and South Asia, managing and conducting complex multi-stakeholder research projects, exploring power building efforts among marginalized groups. Funders for these projects included Kataly Foundation, John Templeton Foundation, Hilton Foundation and GHR. Nalika Gajawira will collaborate with Ann Gleig on a comparative ethnographic study of how Buddhist communities adopt and adapt popular spiritual exercises such as “secular” mindfulness and yoga classes within a wider Buddhist framework. Their work aims to illustrate the processes, frameworks and relationships that can enable more responsible relationships between specific religious communities and the word of spiritual wellness practices. Visit Sacred Writes: Visit Nalika Gajaweera:
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EP 353: Western Esoteric Tradition and "Scientific Progress" with Dr. Tara Isabella Burton
06/30/2026
EP 353: Western Esoteric Tradition and "Scientific Progress" with Dr. Tara Isabella Burton
Tara Isabella Burton (DPhil, University of Oxford; Visiting Fellow, Mercatus Center, George Mason University; Visiting Research Fellow, Institutional Flourishing Lab, Catholic University of America) is a theologian and culture critic, and the author of Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians (Public Affairs, 2022) and Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World (Public Affairs, 2020). She is a regular contributor on religion and culture to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and has lectured and taught seminars at Yale University, Hobart and William Smith College, Radford University, and Covenant College. Her research has been supported by the Mercatus Center and the Robert Novak Foundation. Burton is currently at work on a book about the influence of the Western esoteric tradition, from alchemy to Freemasonry to 19th-century “occult” practices like Theosophy and spiritualism, in the development of what we think of today as “scientific progress.” She argues that the category of the “magical” should be understood as part of a wider theological tradition of understanding what it means for human beings to have mastery over nature. Old Gods, to be published by Convergent (Penguin Random House) in 2026, will trace this influence to the resurgence of interest in “occult” practices in contemporary Silicon Valley culture. Visit Sacred Writes: Visit Tara Isabella Burton:
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EP 352: A Perturbed System Religion and Climate Change from the End of a World w/ Dr. Susannah Crockford
06/23/2026
EP 352: A Perturbed System Religion and Climate Change from the End of a World w/ Dr. Susannah Crockford
A moving study of how religion shapes Western climate discourse. Our ecological system is disturbed, and with it, every other system we’ve built to inhabit it. We do not face inevitable destruction, yet many of us cannot conceive of climate change as anything but the end of the world, an apocalypse with all its biblical trappings. Why? In A Perturbed System, anthropologist Susannah Crockford argues that we must understand the climate emergency as a spiritual crisis, a result of Christian colonialism that we (religious or not) still struggle to describe without religious language. Climate discourse in the United States and northern Europe, Crockford shows, is framed by the same theological motifs that drove extraction, including ideas about prophecy, mediation, sacrifice, original sin, cult, messiah, and apocalypse. By listening to people on the edge of the crisis, A Perturbed System reveals a world in transition, what happens when worlds end—ecologically, socially, politically, and personally—and how we might live through these endings together. Susannah Crockford is a lecturer at the University of Exeter. She is the author of Ripples of the Universe: Spirituality in Sedona, Arizona, also published by the University of Chicago Press. Visit Sacred Writes: Buy the book:
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EP 351: Dr. Ira Helderman on Adverse Meditation Effects
06/14/2026
EP 351: Dr. Ira Helderman on Adverse Meditation Effects
Ira Helderman PhD, LPC (Adjunct Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture, Vanderbilt University; PhD, Religious Studies, Vanderbilt University, 2016) studies how psychotherapists’ definitions of what is and is not religious shape their understandings of caregiving, health, and illness. His first book, Prescribing the Dharma: Psychotherapists, Buddhist Traditions, and Defining Religion (University of North Carolina Press 2019), is the first comprehensive examination of the surprisingly diverse ways that psychotherapists have approached Buddhist traditions. Helderman publishes in peer-reviewed journals such as The Journal of the American Academy of Religion and, committed to public scholarship, writes regularly for popular publications such as Psychology Today, Religion Dispatches, and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. Dr. Helderman is also a practicing psychotherapist and clinical supervisor who has worked in the mental health field for over 20 years in a variety of clinical settings from in-patient addiction treatment centers and psychiatric hospitals to his current private practice. Helderman is currently studying the widespread psychotherapeutic use of Buddhist meditation. Though meditation is often described by patients as a way of easing spiritual yearning, it can also generate “adverse effects” like agitation, traumatic memories, and hallucinations. Dr. Helderman will examine how psychotherapists have conducted a “differential diagnosis” of such cases—distinguishing spiritual experience from psychopathology—and showing that how we define what is and is not “religious” shapes the fields of mental health, psychology, and religious studies. Visit Sacred Writes: Visit Dr. Ira Helderman:
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EP 350: The Wounded Church: Tending to the Harm within Catholicism w/Dr. Annie Selak
06/01/2026
EP 350: The Wounded Church: Tending to the Harm within Catholicism w/Dr. Annie Selak
Dr. Annie Selak (she/her/hers) is an expert in feminist ecclesiology. She studies wounds in the church, or moments where the church fails to live into its mission and causes harm. Racism, sexism, and the clergy sex abuse crisis are examples of the church failing to credibly be church. Guided by a feminist methodology, Selak integrates the lived experience of women with a robust vision for the church. Selak serves as a Visiting Scholar in the Center on Faith and Justice while working as a campus minister at a local independent school. She earned her Ph.D. in systematic theology at Boston College and M.Div at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. Selak has over 15 years of experience in Catholic ministry, and her writing has appeared in Modern Theology, Journal of Catholic Social Thought, Washington Post, National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, and America. Her forthcoming book, (Fordham University Press, 2026) puts forth a vision of the church in the shadow of wounds, guided by a feminist methodology. Selak argues that the Catholic Church must confront its own injuries in order to credibly be Church. Using a feminist framework, she develops a new ecclesiology around three wounds, racism, sexism, and clericalism, that actively harm the Body of Christ and distort its witness. Attentive to history, pastoral practice, and lived experience, Selak shows how each wound is both inflicted by the Church and borne within the Church. She offers the resurrected body of Jesus, scarred yet no longer bleeding, as a guiding metaphor for ecclesial renewal, a body that does not deny its wounds but is transformed through them. Drawing on Karl Rahner, she grounds hope in the reign of God while insisting on concrete institutional and spiritual conversion. Written for students and scholars, ministers and lay leaders, The Wounded Church uncovers overlooked histories tied to racism, sexism, and the clergy sexual abuse crisis, and proposes clear theological principles for reform. The result is a constructive, pastorally engaged vision that tells the truth about harm and imagines credible paths toward change, accountability, and justice. You can use the code “church2026” at the link below to receive a discounted book and free shipping. https://fordhampress.com/the-wounded-church-hb-9781531513368.html
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EP 349: The YouTube Prosperity Gospel w/Dr. Kaitlyn Ugoretz
05/22/2026
EP 349: The YouTube Prosperity Gospel w/Dr. Kaitlyn Ugoretz
Kaitlyn Ugoretz (Lecturer, Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, Nanzan University, Japan; PhD, East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, in progress) is an anthropologist of religion focused on the globalization of Japanese Shinto practices through popular culture such as anime, video games, and Marie Kondo’s decluttering. The Associate Editor of The Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, and a member of the Sacred Writes 2021 public scholarship training cohort, Prof. Ugoretz also promotes public scholarship on Japanese religions through her award-winning educational YouTube channel Eat Pray Anime, in podcast interviews, cultural consulting, and her writing for venues including Religion News Service and The Conversation. Ugoretz will conduct a digital ethnography of Japanese tidying guru Marie Kondo. She notes that while Western scholarship tends to consider Kondo to be “spiritual,” the Japanese find her to be too “religious,” reflecting aspects of Buddhist and Shinto traditions. This leads Ugoretz to argue that our understanding of spiritual yearning should expand---it is neither a new nor an American phenomenon. The boundary between what is “religious” and what is “spiritual” is historically and cultural constructed, and shaped by ideas of race, class, and globalization. She argues that spiritual yearning emerges from human existential needs and concerns, and should be distinguished from the capitalistic patterns of “spiritual consumption” that it often inspires. Visit Sacred Writes: Visit Eat, Pray, Anime:
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EP 348: Dr. Kira Ganga Kieffer on "Unvaccinated Under God: Religion and Vaccine Hesitancy in Modern America"
05/13/2026
EP 348: Dr. Kira Ganga Kieffer on "Unvaccinated Under God: Religion and Vaccine Hesitancy in Modern America"
is a scholar of American religions, history, culture, and politics with a PhD in Religious Studies from Boston University. She is Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Fairfield University. Kieffer's first book, (Princeton University Press, May 19, 2026) examines the spiritual and religious roots of vaccine resistance in U.S. history. In general, her work examines contestations over authority through the interactions between religion, alternative health movements, politics, and consumption. Order "Unvaccinated Under God" here: Visit Sacred Writes here:
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EP 347: Beyond Wellness with Liz Bucar
04/28/2026
EP 347: Beyond Wellness with Liz Bucar
Liz Bucar is a religious ethicist and professor of religion at Northeastern University, as well as a certified intenSati and Kripalu yoga instructor. Her popular writing has appeared in The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, Teen Vogue, and The Wall Street Journal, and she is the author of four books, including the award-winning Stealing My Religion and Pious Fashion. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts. For more about how religion shapes us all, even if we don’t believe, subscribe to Liz’s newsletter at LizBucar.com. In the chaos of today’s world, we’re all searching for meaning. The wellness industry has sold us a promise that we can find it if we just buy the right products, attend the right retreats, and follow the right celebrity gurus. But is this true? Or are we picking and choosing from a self-care salad bar in ways that satisfy our hunger but don’t truly nourish us? When we approach practices like yoga and ayahuasca as fitness routines and life hacks, we miss out on the sacred wisdom they have to offer us. But by digging into the real and often ancient religious traditions behind these practices, from Buddhism to Christianity and beyond, we can make them more meaningful, ethical, and effective—without the often unpleasant baggage of joining an organized religion. In this engaging and deeply personal book, award-winning scholar and writer Liz Bucar embarks on a quest to get to the heart of “spiritual but not religious” activities from detox diets to sound baths. As she tries out each practice for herself, she asks how we can get more out of it by tuning out the hype and taking the religious meaning behind it seriously—with emotionally profound and often surprising results. Whether it’s as simple as setting an intention for a yoga asana or as complex as reevaluating what a “higher power” is, it’s time to understand, experience, and simply get more out of our spiritual practices. It’s time to dig deeper with Beyond Wellness. Order the Book: Visit:
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EP 346: Deepak Chopra-Jeffrey Epstein Connections & the Spirituality Industry Crisis w/Dr. Ann Gleig
04/26/2026
EP 346: Deepak Chopra-Jeffrey Epstein Connections & the Spirituality Industry Crisis w/Dr. Ann Gleig
Ann Gleig (Professor of Religion and Cultural Studies, University of Central Florida; PhD, Rice University, 2010) studies spirituality emerging from the encounter between Buddhism and American culture, particularly meditation and mindfulness. The author of American Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Modernity (Yale University Press, 2019); and co-editor with Scott A. Mitchell of The Oxford Handbook of American Buddhism, she has published widely about how the incorporation of psychotherapeutic and social justice frameworks have transformed American Buddhist practices. A recipient of a Sacred Writes media partnership to write for Religion Dispatches, Dr. Gleig’s public-facing work has also appeared in The Conversation and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. Ann Gleig will collaborate with Nalika Gajawira on a comparative ethnographic study of how Buddhist communities adopt and adapt popular spiritual exercises such as “secular” mindfulness and yoga classes within a wider Buddhist framework. Their work aims to illustrate the processes, frameworks and relationships that can enable more responsible relationships between specific religious communities and the word of spiritual wellness practices. Ann Gleig, “The Deepak Chopra-Jeffrey Epstein friendship tells of a spirituality industry in crisis,” Religion News Service: https://religionnews.com/2026/03/06/the-deepak-chopra-jeffrey- epstein-tells-of-a-spirituality-industry-in-crisis/ Ann Gleig and Brenna Artinger, “The Buddhist Culture Wars #BuddhistCultureWars: BuddhaBros, Alt-Right Dharma, and Snowflake Sanghas," Journal of Global Buddhism Vol 22: 1(2021) Ann Gleig and Amy Langenberg, “Supporting Survivors of Abuse,” Abuse in Buddhism: Facing It, Preventing It and Healing From It, Dharmadatta Community Ann Gleig, Amy Langenberg and Sarah Jacoby, “Reflecting on Heartwood/Northwestern Symposium on Sexual Violence in Buddhism: Centering Survivors Voices,” The Shiloh Project https://shilohproject.blog/reflection-on-heartwood-symposium-on-sexual-violence-in-buddhism- centering-survivors-voices/ Ann Gleig, Talking About Cults: Abuse and the Study of New Religious Movements: https://www.ugapress.org/9780820377902/talking-about-cults/ Association for Spiritual Integrity (ASI) https://www.spiritual-integrity.org/ Seek Safely: https://seeksafely.org/
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EP 345: Relational Ethics and Indigenous Plant Medicines w/Dr. Natalie Avalos
03/24/2026
EP 345: Relational Ethics and Indigenous Plant Medicines w/Dr. Natalie Avalos
Natalie Avalos (Assistant Professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies, University of Colorado Boulder; PhD, University of California Santa Barbara, 2015) is an ethnographer of religion whose research examines contemporary Indigenous religious life, healing historical trauma, and decolonization. A Chicana of Mexican Indigenous descent, born and raised in the Bay Area, Dr. Avalos is currently working on her manuscript, titled Decolonizing Metaphysics: Transnational Indigeneities and Religious Refusal. She served as a co-PI for a Luce Foundation-funded research group at the UC Humanities Research Institute, “Humanitarian Ethics, Religious Affinities and the Politics of Dissent.” She is also the recipient of a Sacred Writes media partner fellowship to write about Buddhism and race for Religion Dispatches. Avalos studies how Indigenous practitioners in the Denver metro area navigate the increasing use of Indigenous plant medicine like ayahuasca and psilocybin by white Americans for wellness purposes. Her informants are concerned about the metaphysical impacts of the decontextualized use of these plants, including how their commodification and increased white demand may limit Indigenous access. However, Avalos’s study reveals that along with these risks are compelling possible benefits. Within their Indigenous religious context, plants are understood to have conscious, sacred intelligence revered within the larger social body. If Westerners could look through this sacred lens, plant medicines could help address human-centric biases created by colonial relations, and the West's spiritual yearning for a lost connection to the natural world. Such understanding could both benefit our ecological future and inspire rectification of historical and ongoing dispossession of Indigenous peoples. Learn more about John Templeton Foundation's Sacred Writes Working Group here: https://www.sacred-writes.org/templeton-working-group
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EP 344: Altered States of Consciousness w/Dr. Michiel van Elk
03/04/2026
EP 344: Altered States of Consciousness w/Dr. Michiel van Elk
Michiel van Elk (1980) is a researcher and writer in the field of psychology, philosophy and neuroscience. Having received his PhD at the Donders Institute, the Netherlands, he has worked at several international institutions including the University of California Santa Barbara the École Polytechnique Féderale de Lausanne in Switzerland and Stanford University. He is currently affiliated as associate professor at Leiden University. He has conducted pioneering work on psychedelics, altered states of consciousness, feelings of awe, the evolution of religion and mystical experiences. His work, including more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles, book chapters and books, has been featured by the New York Times, Vice, Lonely Planet, New Scientist, The Daily Beast and Psychedelic Spotlight. VISIT PRSM Lab: Visit Sacred Writes:
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Ep 343: Moral Courage for Our Times w/Dr. Laine Walters Young
02/25/2026
Ep 343: Moral Courage for Our Times w/Dr. Laine Walters Young
Laine Walters Young is the Assistant Director of the Cal Turner Program for Moral Leadership in the Professions at Vanderbilt University. She received her PhD from Vanderbilt in Religion, Psychology and Culture, and considers herself a feminist care ethicist working at the intersection of psychology and ethics. She has experience in non-profit administration as well as a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School where she studied Religion in Public Life, storytelling, and the possibilities of pluralism. At the Cal Turner Program, she directs the interprofessional student fellowship at Vanderbilt, a group of masters-level students who journey together over a year to deepen their moral awareness and gain leadership skill. Thank you to Sacred Writes for the support! Visit Sacred Writes:
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EP 342: Puerto Rico, Bad Bunny, and the Civil Religion of the NFL
02/10/2026
EP 342: Puerto Rico, Bad Bunny, and the Civil Religion of the NFL
Dr. Lizardy-Hajbi is the author of Unraveling Religious Leadership: Power, Authority, and Decoloniality (Fortress Press, 2024) and co-editor of Explore: Vocational Discovery in Ministry (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). In addition, she is the author of a number of articles and reports, including Latino Congregations: Trends from the Faith Communities Today (FACT) and Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations (EPIC) Studies. Read "Songs That Call Me Home to Puerto Rico": Visit: Visit Sacred Writes:
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EP 341: St. Brigid of Ireland w/Dr. Judish L. Bishop
02/01/2026
EP 341: St. Brigid of Ireland w/Dr. Judish L. Bishop
Judith L. Bishop is Associate Professor of History and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Alice Andrews Quigley Chair in Women’s Studies at Mills College at Northeastern University. She earned her BA from Baylor University, MA from Vanderbilt University, and her PhD from the Graduate Theological Union. Her research interests include: women in world religions; theoretical approaches to gender, body, and sexuality; and religion in public discourse. Visit Sacred Writes:
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EP 340: Becoming Neighbors w/Amar Peterman
01/22/2026
EP 340: Becoming Neighbors w/Amar Peterman
Amar D. Peterman is a constructive theologian working at the intersection of faith and public life. He is the founder of Scholarship for Religion and Society LLC and the former assistant director of civic networks at Interfaith America. Peterman holds an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary and is currently a PhD student at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School. His writing and research have been featured in Sojourners, Christianity Today, The Christian Century,The Fetzer Institute, TheBerkley Forum, and The Anxious Bench. He also publishes regularly on his Substack, This Common Life. Becoming Neighbors: The Common Good Made Local is his first book. Read "Becoming Neighbors: The Common Good Made Local": Visit: Subscribe to "This Common Life" on Substack: Visit Sacred Writes:
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EP 339: Angela of Foligno and the Lepers of Our Time w/Dr. Mac Loftin
01/14/2026
EP 339: Angela of Foligno and the Lepers of Our Time w/Dr. Mac Loftin
is a lecturer on theology at Harvard Divinity School. This essay was adapted from his forthcoming book, “” and was produced in partnership with The Narrative Project, an initiative of The Christian Century. Read: View: Visit:
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EP 338: Resting Beside Living Waters W/LJ Williams
01/05/2026
EP 338: Resting Beside Living Waters W/LJ Williams
LJ Williams (they/she) is a queer African and Jewish ritualist and writer, pursuing an MDiv from Starr King School for The Ministry with a certificate in Entheogenic Justice Companioning. They are a longtime Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism community member, and served as a coordinator of a Chicago BLUUHaven. They were a Worship Learning Fellow at the Church of Larger Fellowship (2021-2023) and she received a B.A. from University of Illinois in Global Studies and Environmental Sustainability. She currently serves as board president of Young Adult Revival Network. She is interested in the intersections of land, religion, and revolutionary movements, embodied ritual and queer bodies. She loves arts, science fiction, and her family. Follow LJ Williams: Follow Sacred Writes:
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EP 337: Mappila Muslim Matrilineal Houses: Islam, Architecture and the Indian Ocean w/Azna Parveen
12/11/2025
EP 337: Mappila Muslim Matrilineal Houses: Islam, Architecture and the Indian Ocean w/Azna Parveen
Azna Parveen is a PhD scholar in Architecture at the University of Manchester, UK. Her research explores the socio-cultural translations of Islam in the built environment through the perspective of oceanic trade along the Indian Ocean littorals, focussing on Malabar Coast of Kerala, India. Trained in architecture with a specialisation in Urban Design, she has previously worked as an architect and an academician. She was also part of a multidisciplinary team awarded a grant by India Foundation for Art to study the spatial and sensorial landscape of Kayalpattinam. Beyond academia, she is a published illustrator and storyteller, leading heritage walks independently and with organisations (past collaborators include Kochi-Muziris Biennale) to encourage inclusive and interdisciplinary conversations about architectural and urban histories and sustainable futures for heritage. Visit Sacred Writes:
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EP 336: Deirdre Jonese Austin on Dance and Sacredness
11/18/2025
EP 336: Deirdre Jonese Austin on Dance and Sacredness
Deirdre Jonese Austin (she/her) is a writer, womanist minister, and Black feminist anthropologist and ethnographer raised in the South and in the Protestant Church. Her work, ministry, and research develop out of her own experience and explore topics at the intersection of faith, race, gender and sexuality, and justice. Jonese has a Master of Divinity degree from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. She is currently a PhD candidate at Duke University in Cultural Anthropology, pursuing certificates in Feminist and African and African American Studies. Her doctoral project explores how Black women dancers in the U.S. South cultivate the sacred in their relationships with their own bodies and sexualities, the divine, and other dancers, at Black churches and at pole-dance and fitness studios. Visit Sacred Writes:
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EP 335: Philo and the Therapeuts w/Dr. Jimmy Hoke
10/27/2025
EP 335: Philo and the Therapeuts w/Dr. Jimmy Hoke
Jimmy Hoke is a freelance scholar whose uses their research, writing, and teaching to enact genuine change. Their work engages and creates queer, trans, and feminist approaches to the New Testament and Early Christianity. They are the author of Feminism, Queerness, Affect, and Romans: Under God?, which reconstructs how queer wo/men engaged with impulses in Paul’s letters. They are the Treasurer of Feminist Studies in Religion, Inc. and teach courses at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. Their current research and writing projects include exploring asexuality in first-century Judaism and Christianity, exploring the intersections of queerness and disability in the gospels, and reexamining the rhetoric of “sluttiness” in Paul’s letters. Visit Dr. Jimmy Hoke online: Visit Sacred Writes online:
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EP 334: Womanist Theology w/Samantha Carwyn
09/10/2025
EP 334: Womanist Theology w/Samantha Carwyn
Samantha Carwyn is a graduate of United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, where she earned a Master of Divinity with a concentration in Social Transformation and Church Leadership. Her thesis, Finding Sacred Inherent Worth Despite Adultification & Misogynoir, explores the intersections of gender, race, and the societal expectations placed on Black women. She is currently in care for ordination with the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches. In her community, Samantha engages in transformative resistance through education, storytelling, and artivism. As a public theologian, she is committed to building bridges between the church, academia, and everyday people to cultivate meaningful conversations. Visit Sacred Writes: Visit Samantha Carwyn:
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EP 333: Salvadoran-Middle Eastern Resistance and Shafiq Handal w/Dr. Amy Fallas
09/03/2025
EP 333: Salvadoran-Middle Eastern Resistance and Shafiq Handal w/Dr. Amy Fallas
Dr. Amy Fallas is a PhD in History at UC Santa Barbara. She holds an MA in History from Yale and her research examines religious difference, charitable networks, and historical memory in the Middle East. Her work has been supported by the American Research Center in Egypt, the American Society for Church History, the Orthodox Christian Studies Center among others. She is the Associate Editor of the Arab Studies Journal and serves on the steering committees of the History of Christianity and Middle Eastern Christianity units of the American Academy of Religion. Her scholarship appears in History Compass and Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations and her essays are published in the Washington Post, Jadaliyya, Mada Masr, the Revealer, Sojourners and more. On this episode, we mostly discuss her article Brothers in the Resistance, research in Lebanon about connections between Latin America and the Middle East, titled Hermanos fi al-Muqawama, She is based in Beirut. Visit Sacred Writes: Visit Amy Fallas:
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EP 332: Nonbinary Biblical Readings of Mordecai and Beyond w/Dr. Esther Brownsmith
08/21/2025
EP 332: Nonbinary Biblical Readings of Mordecai and Beyond w/Dr. Esther Brownsmith
Esther Brownsmith (she/her) is Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Dayton. Her first monograph, Gendered Violence in Biblical Narrative: The Devouring Metaphor (Routledge, 2024), was awarded the AJS Jordan Schnitzer First Book Publication Award. She is also editor-in-chief of Unruly Books: Rethinking Ancient and Academic Imaginations of Religious Texts (Bloomsbury, 2025), and her recent publications examine the book of Esther in the light of fan fiction studies, queer theory, and affect theory. Her research focuses on the stories of the Hebrew Bible and the cultural and literary norms that make them so resonant. Her latest project applies Sara Ahmed's "feminist killjoy" to the women of the Hebrew Bible, using biblical stories of unhappy women as a model for modern unhappy readers. Follow Sacred Writes: @brownsmith.bsky.social You can get your copy of Trans Biblical
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EP 331: Radical Antiquity w/Dr. Christopher Zeichmann
08/12/2025
EP 331: Radical Antiquity w/Dr. Christopher Zeichmann
Christopher B. Zeichmann (he/they) is a contract lecturer at Toronto Metropolitan University, who specializes in the study of the New Testament. His research focuses on a variety of questions related to sexuality, the Roman military, and the early Jesus tradition. His books include Radical Antiquity: Free Love Zoroastrians, Farming Pirates, and Ancient Uprisings (Pluto, 2025), Queer Readings of the Centurion at Capernaum: Their History and Politics (SBL Press, 2022), and The Roman Army and the New Testament (Lexington/Fortress Academic, 2018). Visit Sacred Writes:
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EP 330: Commodification and Tibetan Buddhism w/Dr. Raj Kumar Singh
08/04/2025
EP 330: Commodification and Tibetan Buddhism w/Dr. Raj Kumar Singh
Raj Kumar Singh is a PhD researcher in Anthropology at the University of Delhi, currently studying the relationship between religion and economy in Mcleodganj, Dharamshala. He has published several articles and book chapters on Hindu nationalism, Tibetan Buddhism, and the relationship between Communism, Buddhism, and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar. Visit Sacred Writes:
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EP 329: Brahma Vidya Mandir Ashram w/Dr. Swasti Bhattacharyya
07/23/2025
EP 329: Brahma Vidya Mandir Ashram w/Dr. Swasti Bhattacharyya
Swasti Bhattacharyya (PhD, RN) Professor Emerita of Philosophy and Religion, has been researching, writing, and teaching in religious studies and applied ethics for over two decades. She examines ethical issues from multiple philosophical and religious perspectives. Her work is rooted in her upbringing as a daughter of an immigrant Hindu father from India and a Japanese Buddhist mother born and raised in Hawai’i. She utilized her experiences as a registered nurse and as an applied ethicist in several publications presenting Hindu perspectives on bioethical issues and on cultural humility. Her current creative nonfiction project combines her academic expertise with her long-term relationships with the women of the Brahma Vidya Mandir ashram, an intentional, spiritually-focused women’s community in rural central India. Visit Sacred Writes:
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EP 328: Christian Disaffiliation and Exiting w/Dr. Tess Starman
07/16/2025
EP 328: Christian Disaffiliation and Exiting w/Dr. Tess Starman
Tess Starman (she/they) is a recent PhD graduate in Sociology at Howard University and is an incoming assistant professor at Simpson College. Her research specializes on intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and power at the nexus of religion and politics. She studies progressive Christian attitudes, religious exiting, and religion’s impact on political attitudes and engagement. We discuss her dissertation, entitled, “A Corrupted Faith: The Role of Power in the Process of Christian Disaffiliation and Rise of the Religious Nones,” which examines the religious exiting process and non-religious identity formation of ex-Christians. You can find her work at . Visit Sacred Writes:
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EP327: Religious Shame and Dieting w/Dr. Rebecca Wolfe
07/08/2025
EP327: Religious Shame and Dieting w/Dr. Rebecca Wolfe
Rebecca Wolfe is a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University. Graduating with a PhD in Sociology from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 2024, Rebecca’s research agenda focuses on the areas of gender, sexuality, the body, and mental health, particularly in the context of religion. Rebecca’s dissertation work examined bodily experiences of disordered eating and sexual dysfunction among people raised as women in purity culture, a Protestant evangelical movement. Rebecca has been published in academic journals including Health Affairs, Social Science and Medicine - Population Health, and Theology and Sexuality, and created public facing work on podcasts such as EDGES and Anthrodish, and through the Sage Knowledge video series. Visit Sacred Writes:
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EP 326: Fertility, Abortion, Reproductive Care, and Islam w/Dr. Celene Ibrahim
06/24/2025
EP 326: Fertility, Abortion, Reproductive Care, and Islam w/Dr. Celene Ibrahim
Dr. Celene Ibrahim is a multidisciplinary scholar specializing in Qur’anic studies, gender studies and interreligious relations. Her award-winning monograph Women and Gender in the Qur'an (Oxford University Press, 2020) received the Association of Middle East Women's Studies book prize and is being translated into multiple languages. She also authored Islam and Monotheism, an accessible primer on Islamic theology (Cambridge University Press 2022), edited One Nation, Indivisible: Seeking Liberty and Justice from the Pulpit to the Streets (Wipf & Stock 2019), and is featured in the Netflix docudrama Testament: The Story of Moses (2024). Ibrahim holds degrees from Princeton University (AB), Harvard Divinity School (MDiv), and Brandeis University (MA/PHD). She serves as a faculty member at Groton School in Religious Studies and Philosophy. Visit Sacred Writes: Visit Celene Ibrahim:
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EP 325: Intersectional Identities of Christian Women in the United States w/Dr. Amanda Hernandez
06/19/2025
EP 325: Intersectional Identities of Christian Women in the United States w/Dr. Amanda Hernandez
Amanda Hernandez is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and affiliate faculty member of the Feminist Studies and Race & Ethnicity Studies programs at Southwestern University. She is a proud graduate of San Antonio Community College. She received her B.A. in Women’s & Gender Studies from the University of Texas at San Antonio, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Baylor University. Her work focuses on the ways that white supremacy and sexism show up in U.S. Christian groups. She is the author of Intersectional Identities of Christian Women in the United States: Faith, Race, and Feminism (Lexington Books, 2024). Her work has been published in Conscience Magazine, Sociology of Race & Ethnicity, the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and Sociological Spectrum. Visit Sacred Writes: Visit Dr. Amanda Hernandez: Buy the book:
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